*
Katya rode close to her parents, niece and nephew, and Lord Vincent. He gladly accepted her into their circle, his face almost relaxing when he could keep an eye on all the Umbriels at once. She wondered if he ever thought about Reinholt, but she knew he’d never offer that information. She’d have to pry to get him to reveal anything.
They were getting close to Oldsport, his homeland, though he didn’t own it. His title came from winning the champion tourney. He was the son of the noble; he just had the misfortune of being a second child.
Oldsport was owned by Countess Esme Lakewood, Vincent’s sister. She’d never come to court, and Katya had only heard of her because of her more famous brother. Still, there was no reason to think her disloyal. Katya had heard that Countess Esme stayed away from court only because of an accident in her youth that had taken her right leg below the knee. After getting to know Vincent a little better, Katya was willing to bet that Esme never came to court because she just didn’t care what went on there.
They reached her estate at midday. After a quick scout, Da decided to visit. As with Count Mathias, Countess Esme’s approval would go a long way in securing local volunteers. Vincent accompanied them only after Katya’s mother ordered him to go. Still, he secured a personal pledge from Count Mathias to watch over them.
Esme met them at the door to her large house. She sported silver hair like her brother, and like his, it contrasted with her youthful features. She wore it tied in a tail over her dark blue coat. Katya noted traces of silver from head to toe, buttons to jewelry to the cane she leaned on and the length of silver that served as the lower half of her right leg.
Vincent presented Katya and her father and then Castelle. The rest, as commoners, he dismissed. Katya resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Majesty, Highness, Baroness,” Esme said with a bow. She looked at Vincent and raised one slender eyebrow. “Vincent, you look well.”
“Thank you, Esme, and you.”
It had all the charm of a funeral. “Warms my heart,” Brutal murmured.
“Some refreshment?” Esme asked.
They followed her inside, Da making small talk. Esme was polite but cold with her replies, as if she saw no reason to be otherwise. She reminded Katya so much of Vincent that Katya kept glancing at him, just to make sure they really were two different people.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” a woman’s voice called as they reached a sitting room.
Katya glanced over and had to stop her jaw from dropping.
A petite blond woman in a green riding outfit rushed into the room. She smiled, and the light in the room seemed to brighten. Her green eyes glittered as she paused near Esme and bowed. “I wish I could have met you at the gate, but I just got back from town, Majesty, Highness, and…” She looked at Castelle.
“I’m…um,” Castelle said.
“Baroness Castelle,” Esme said smoothly. “Majesty, Highness, this is my wife, Yvonne Van Lakewood.”
Da put on his most charming grin. “A pleasure, dear lady.”
She matched his smile and then graced them all with the same. “Won’t you sit down?”
As the others moved to sit, Castelle grabbed Katya’s arm. “How in the spirits’ names did that cold fish nab that glorious woman?” she whispered.
“Keep your roaming hands to yourself.”
“A year ago, I would have bankrupted myself chasing her. I’d have been writing promissory notes all over the kingdom.”
Katya elbowed her gently before they both took a seat. Castelle grimaced and touched her stomach where Darren had wounded her. “Maybe you should have stayed behind,” Katya said.
“And miss this? Never.”
The quiet, cold countess of Oldsport and her beautiful, effervescent wife made a strange pair. Yvonne was happy to chat away, though she seemed neither flippant nor silly. Katya sensed great intelligence in both of them, just of a different variety. It was like seeing light married to darkness, or air to earth.
When the talk turned to war, Yvonne frowned, her eyes sad; Esme’s expression didn’t change. The two of them pledged whatever help they could offer to the war, promising to speak with the villagers at Da’s side. Katya wondered who would move the villagers more, their stoic countess or her expressive lady.
When they were preparing to return to camp, Vincent rose to go with them. “Do you want to stay the night, Vincent?” Katya asked. “Catch up with your family?”
He blinked at her as if he didn’t understand the question. “I thank your Highness for your consideration, but no, I would like to stay with the children.”
She shrugged, giving up trying to figure him out for the moment. As they rode away, Castelle stared over her shoulder at the house.
“Stop that,” Katya said, “or I’ll tell Redtrue on you.”
“If she keeps tossing me out of her tent, she deserves what she gets.”
“I thought you two were making up.”
Castelle’s sigh spoke volumes, but of what Katya didn’t know.
“If you make one flirty move toward the countess’s wife, I’ll reopen your wound.”
Castelle frowned. “Since when are you so intent on protecting everyone’s virtue?”
Brutal grunted. “Since the countess and her bride come with several hundred souls to help us fight.”
“Not you, too, Brutal,” Castelle said. “I thought you believed in love at first sight.”
“Best and Berth teach us to pick our battles and not fight for foolish reasons.”
“Love is not a foolish reason,” Castelle said with a sniff.
“I wouldn’t call what’s happening in your trousers love, exactly,” Katya said.
Castelle gave her a withering look that turned to a smile almost immediately. “Fair point.”
When they returned to camp, Katya sought out Vincent again, having had the opportunity to wonder about his family for most of the ride. She watched him check on the children and then return outside to begin a series of forms with his sword. When he noticed Katya watching, he bowed and then resumed his exercises.
“How did your sister and Yvonne meet?” Katya asked.
“I do not know, Highness.”
“How could you not know?”
He paused. “Have I offended you, Highness?”
“No, I just… You don’t know how your sister met her wife?”
“One day she was not married, the next she was.”
“She didn’t tell you she’d met the woman she intended to marry?”
He stared at nothing for a moment. “She needed neither my permission nor my assistance.”
“Of course,” Katya said, but she still tried to puzzle it out. Once Vincent had left Oldsport, he and his sister had forgotten about each other, it seemed, especially after Vincent won the champion tourney and left for Reinholt’s keep. But was it dislike or apathy that kept them apart? If Katya asked, she was certain she’d get the same questioning look.
“Vincent.” Katya had seen the look on Vincent’s and Reinholt’s faces after they’d kissed. They were passionate about each other. And there had to be something about Esme to make Yvonne choose her over all the others that had to have been clamoring for her attention.
“Yes, Highness?”
“I know that if I asked you some personal questions, you’d do your best to answer.”
She almost saw his body tighten with anxiety. “Yes, Highness.”
“Well, I can’t seem to help myself, so I’ll give you an out. I’ll ask five questions, and you get two draws.” She held up her hand, thumb touching her index and middle finger. Combatants used it during the champion’s tourney to pass on their current opponent and draw another. Each competitor got one draw, and it had to be used before the finals. Some used it to find a more challenging opponent, some to find a weaker one. Katya knew that Vincent had never used it, so he had at least two saved up, she supposed.
He bowed, faced pinched as if wondering what he’d
done to deserve this. “As you will.”
Katya didn’t want to pry, she told herself, except she really did, almost felt that she had to. Maybe Starbride had rubbed off on her. “Do you love my brother?”
He touched his thumb to his fingers and drew an invisible line as if crossing the question out of the air.
Katya nodded, but she wondered which response he thought would offend her more: that he loved someone above his station or that he didn’t?
“Have you thought about looking for him? Seriously considered it, I mean?”
“I have,” he said softly. “But duty does not permit it.”
“I understand.”
He offered a tiny smile, so slight most might have missed it.
“Are you angry at him for leaving? And if you are, don’t think you have to hide it from me. I’m plenty angry already.”
He slid his thumb across his fingers as if considering voiding the question, but that left two more with no way out. “I…was surprised at his highness, saddened.”
Katya nodded. If Reinholt returned to them, she had no worry that Vincent would shirk his duties, but she wondered if he’d return to Reinholt’s bed. Maybe he’d become as cold to Reinholt as he seemed to everyone else.
“Do you love Bastian and Vierdrin? Even beyond duty? I won’t be offended if you say yes.”
There was that smile again, only a little bigger this time. “I would never offend your Highness or their Majesties. I hope you understand when I say that I would not exchange my sacred charge for anything upon the earth or among the spirits.”
Katya grinned at the most she’d ever heard from him. “Very eloquent. Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and wracked her brain for a last question he wouldn’t automatically cancel.
“Is that all, Highness?”
“I have one more question.”
“Forgive me, Highness. I thought I counted five.”
Katya went over their conversation in her head and realized she’d repeated her last question. “Clever thing, you.”
He gave her a confused blink. “Highness?”
“Never mind. Thank you for humoring me, Vincent.”
“I bow to your Highness’s will in all things.”
She left him to resume his practice, now knowing he was far more slippery than he appeared.
*
After the army settled, Katya took a little time to relax and give her wounds a rest. She drank tea with her mother while her father visited with Dayscout and Leafclever in Dayscout’s tent. Brutal watched over him, but Katya didn’t miss the way Vincent kept casting looks at the door. The children played together in the furs on the floor.
“You are allowed to sit, Vincent,” Katya said.
“Highness.” He cast a quick glance at the chair, as if deciding whether what she’d said was an order or just a statement of fact. Then he sank fluidly into the seat. One of the nannies poured him a cup before retreating into the background.
A drop of tea rolled down the side of the cup. Vincent’s eyes tracked it and then flicked toward the nanny, the barest hint of a frown creasing his mouth.
“I…I’m sorry,” the nanny said. “I—”
Vincent held up a finger, and she stopped speaking. “My apologies, Majesty, Highness. Sarah is not as adept at pouring tea as she is at caring for children.”
Katya coughed over a laugh. Only Vincent would adhere to strict protocols in the middle of nowhere, at the heart of an army. At the same time, he vouched for Sarah’s other abilities, as he had no doubt been the one to choose her as a nanny.
“Quite all right,” Katya’s mother said. “We’ve all become adept at maneuvering outside of the circles we were once so comfortable in.”
Sarah allowed herself a little smile behind Vincent’s back.
“You’re not a field medic, Lord Vincent,” Ma said, “but only yesterday, you bound Bastian’s war wound.”
“War wound?” Katya glanced at the children, both of whom were interested now that one had been mentioned.
Little Bastian held up his bandaged thumb. “Nicked it.”
“A new word for him,” Ma said.
“Big baby.” Vierdrin glanced at Katya’s lap as if considering climbing into it before she went to Vincent.
“Am not,” Bastian said as he followed her. When they’d asked permission, he pulled them up on his knees.
The other nanny poured them two small cups of tea before stepping back to join Sarah. “Thank you, Felicia,” Ma said.
Katya leaned back and inhaled the aroma. Slightly different from what they’d had in Marienne, it was worlds better than the bitter concoction she’d been forced to drink at Count Mathias’s estate.
They all were silent for a few moments. Even the children seemed to drowse on Vincent’s lap. They’d had a long day. Katya had already told her parents about contacting Starbride; she was loath to bring it up again in front of Vincent. He wouldn’t have blinked or offered comment, but Starbride didn’t like him, and Katya didn’t want to share anything between them.
A small noise outside almost passed beneath Katya’s notice, but she glanced up to see Vincent staring in that direction. It was a footfall, close to the tent’s side. Probably a guard, as no one else was allowed close to the royal tent. Perhaps it was her father retuning.
Why then, did the hair on her neck stand up? It sounded too much like someone trying to be quiet. Her father wouldn’t bother, and the guards weren’t supposed to be milling around the side of the tent but guarding the front.
Katya and Vincent stood at the same time. He put the children in his chair and shushed them as they protested.
“What is it?” Ma whispered.
Katya waved Sarah and Felicia forward, and they crowded around the table with Ma and the children. Katya didn’t want them close to the walls. If a corpse Fiend was lurking outside, who knew where it would come through?
Vincent drew his sword and moved to the flap. Katya drew her rapier and stood close to the others, trying to hear. If an enemy was close, it was likely the guards were already dead. If she shouted, would anyone hear, or would she just give her position away? Vincent ducked low in the doorway. If he could get outside, he could raise the alarm.
A short blade stabbed through the flap where his head would have been. He sprang back, staying low. Katya expected a corpse Fiend to speed in after him, but a normal man stepped inside. He took a defensive stance with a calm, murderous look upon his face.
Bastian and Vierdrin screamed. Ma and the nannies herded them behind Katya as another man followed the first through the flap. Katya heard the rip of fabric and turned to confront a woman who slipped through a new slit in the back of the tent.
“Ma, watch the door!” Katya said. They could be wearing disguise pyramids and be corpse Fiends all the same, but they didn’t have an aura of cold. Katya moved to engage the woman’s short blade. Someone had outfitted her just like the men, from her blade to the chain shirt she wore.
Katya came on furiously. It was unlikely she could penetrate the mail, so she went for the head. If these were corpse Fiends, that was the place to stab them anyway. The chain-woman blocked, keeping Katya at bay. Behind her, Katya spotted movement. A barrel-chested man followed the chain-woman inside.
“Shout!” Katya commanded those behind her.
Ma and the nannies shouted for help. The children cried along with them. Katya heard the ring of steel behind her.
The barrel-chested man rushed Katya. She ducked and stuck her leg out, tripping him. Brutal would have never depended on his size that way. He staggered, and she heard her shouting family move away. The chain-woman came on hard: short, harsh swings designed to tear Katya’s weapon from her grasp. Katya feinted, pretended to stumble, and when the chain-woman came close, Katya stabbed her in the knee. She broke off with a howl. Not corpse Fiends then.
Katya heard a gurgle behind her. Vincent had stabbed the barrel-chested man in the back
of the head, and he crumpled. The other two were dead in the entryway. Ma had grabbed her necklace, ready to rip it from her throat.
Katya leapt forward as the chain-woman limped for the slit in the tent. Katya grabbed her elbow. She spun, sword aimed. Katya ducked, and Vincent blocked the blow.
“Take her alive!” Katya called.
The chain-woman didn’t have time to strike again before Vincent’s fist rammed forward. The sword in his grip added enough weight to the blow to send her flying into the tent wall. She sagged against it, unmoving, the fabric bowing around her. Vincent hauled her closer before leaning through the bottom of the hole and calling for help.
Several yells answered him. Katya knelt next to the chainmail woman as Berg popped his head in the flap.
“What in the spirits’ names happened here?” he asked.
“Go and make sure my father is safe,” Katya said. “We need guards, the pyradisté Rene, and someone to sew up that hole.” As he disappeared, Katya turned to her mother. “Do you have any rope, Ma?”
Felicia hurried to find some while Sarah tried to calm the children. As Katya bound the chain-woman, Katya asked, “Do you want me to do this somewhere else?”
“No,” Ma said as she buttoned up her coat. “I want to be here while you question her.”
*
Katya bit her thumb as she watched Rene plumb the mind of the would-be assassin. She hadn’t even bothered trying to get the adsnazi to help. They would have objected from the start.
Vincent had moved the children to another tent with Brutal and Castelle’s friends watching over them. If they had been the assassins’ targets, Katya thought it might be a good idea to keep the royal party moving, never occupying the same space in camp two nights in a row.
Katya’s parents watched the interrogation, though they hadn’t said much. That was all right. Katya preferred the silence.
Watching Rene at work made her ache for Starbride or Crowe. Rene was rumored to be good at his job. When she’d investigated him as a candidate for the bearded man—before she’d found it was Roland—she’d discovered he was a top graduate in his class. But either he hadn’t been practicing or mind magic was never his forte. After what seemed like an eternity, he straightened.
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